Drishti - Yoga - South Bend

Weekly Reading

2012-01-22T07:07:00.001-08:00

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.”

"Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

"I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear."
~Martin Luther King, Jr

Weekly Reading

2012-01-07T15:14:00.001-08:00

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Many Thanks

2011-12-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

to those of you that attended the Christmas Eve yoga practice for
People Gotta Eat and to Elaine Sizemore for allowing us to use the
space at Good Shepherd. WE raised a total of $407.34. To my under-
standing there is a matching grant which will double the donated amount
to $814.68, allowing $5,702.76 worth of food to be purchased.

Reading

2011-12-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

We clap our hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait awhile with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Janist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas, a halting of hate time.

We Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the world aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, my Brother
Peace, My Sister
Peace, My Soul.
~Maya Angelou

Weekly Reading

2011-12-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.
The good news is that you don't know how great you can be!
How much you can love!
What you can accomplish!
And what your potential is!"
- Anne Frank

Weekly Reading

2011-11-23T03:20:00.001-08:00

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire.
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something,
for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations,
because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge,
because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary,
because it means you've made the effort.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who
are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles,
and they can become your blessings.
~Author Unknown

Weekly Reading

2011-11-18T11:57:00.001-08:00

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-10-28T05:42:00.000-07:00

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-10-06T13:26:00.001-07:00

A Yogi’s Prayer
May all who are mean return to good;
May all who are good obtain true peace.
May all who are peaceful be freed from bonds;
May all who are free set others free.

Blessings upon all the earth;
May all of the world’s rulers uphold righteousness.
May only good fortune reach everyone;
May all the world’s creatures be happy.

May rain fall when the earth is thirsty;
May all the storehouses be filled.
May everyone here be free from injury;
May all who are good be free from fear.

May everyone know a life of joy;
May everyone live a life of health.
May everyone see only good in the world;
May everyone soon be released from pain.

May everyone overcome all their woes;
May everyone see only good in the world.
May everyone realize all their desires;
May everyone everywhere be glad.

May our mother and father be blessed;
Blessings upon every creature on earth.
May our works flourish and aid everyone,
And long may our eyes see the sun.
Om shanti, shanti, shanti (peace).

Weekly Reading

2011-08-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

Singapore

In Singapore, in the airport,

A darkness was ripped from my eyes.

In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.

A woman knelt there, washing something

in the white bowl.

Disgust argued in my stomach

and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.

A poem should always have birds in it.

Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.

Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.

A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain

rising and falling.

A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

When the woman turned I could not answer her face.

Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and

neither could win.

She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?

Everybody needs a job.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor,

which is dull enough.

She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as

hubcaps, with a blue rag.

Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.

She does not work slowly, nor quickly, like a river.

Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.

I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.

And I want to rise up from the crust and the slop

and fly down to the river.

This probably won’t happen.

But maybe it will.

If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?

Of course, it isn’t.

Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only

the light that can shine out of a life. I mean

the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,

The way her smile was only for my sake; I mean

the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Weekly Reading

2011-08-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

Roses, Late Summer

What happens
to the leaves after
they turn red and golden and fall
away? What happens

to the singing birds
when they can't sing
any longer? What happens
to their quick wings?

Do you think there is any
personal heaven
for any of us?
Do you think anyone,

the other side of that darkness,
will call to us, meaning us?
Beyond the trees
the foxes keep teaching their children

to live in the valley.
So they never seem to vanish, they are always there
in the blossom of the light
that stands up every morning

in the dark sky.
And over one more set of hills,
along the sea,
the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness

and are giving it back to the world.
If I had another life
I would want to spend it all on some
unstinting happiness.

I would be a fox, or a tree
full of waving branches.
I wouldn't mind being a rose
in a field full of roses.

Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
Reason they have not yet thought of.
Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
Or any other foolish question.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-08-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

Just for Now,
without asking how,
let yourself sink into stillness.

Just for now,
lay down the weight
you so patiently bear upon your shoulders.
Feel the earth receive you,
and the infinite expanse of the sky grow even wider
as your awareness reaches up to meet it.

Just for now,
allow a wave of breath to enliven your experience.
Breathe out whatever blocks you from the truth.

Just for now,
be boundless, free, with awakened energy
tingling in your hands and feet.
Drink in the possibility of being who and what you really
are – so fully alive that the world looks different,
newly born and vibrant,
just for now.
~ Danna Faulds

Weekly Reading

2011-07-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

Just give me this: A rinsing out, a cleansing free of all my smaller
strivings so I can be the class act God intended. True to my purpose,
all my energy aligned behind my deepest intention.

And just this: A quieting down, a clearing away of internal ruckus,
so I can hear the huge stillness in my heart and feel how I pulse with
all creation, part and parcel of Your great singing ocean.

And this too: A willingness to notice and forgive the myriad times
I fall short, forgetting who I really am, what I really belong to. So
I can start over, fresh and clean like sweet sheets billowing in the
summer sun, my heart pierced with gratitude.
~ Belleruth Naparstek

Weekly Reading

2011-06-30T17:55:00.001-07:00

You, Reader

I wonder how are you going to feel
when you find out
that I wrote this instead of you,

that it was I who got up early
to sit in the kitchen
and mention with a pen

the rain-soaked windows,
the ivy wall paper,
and the goldfish circling in its bowl.

Go ahead and turn aside,
bite your lip and tear out the page,
but listen-it was just matter of time

before one of us happened
to notice the unlit candles
and the clock humming on the wall.

Plus, nothing happened that morning-
a song on the radio,
a car whistling along the road outside-

and I was only thinking
about the shakers of salt and pepper
that were standing side by side on a place mat

I wondered if they had become friends
after all these years
or if they were still strangers to one another

like you and I
who manage to be known and unknown
to each other at the same time-

me at this table with a bowl of pears,
you leaning in a doorway somewhere
near some blue hydrangeas, reading this.

Weekly Reading

2011-06-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Numbers
I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.
Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.
There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.
And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.
Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.
~Mary Cornish

Weekly Reading

2011-06-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

~ Mary Oliver

Yoga in the Park will not meet today, Tuesday June 21

2011-06-21T11:51:00.001-07:00

Weekly Reading

2011-05-26T02:55:00.000-07:00

My Life

Somehow it got into my room.
I found it, and it was, naturally, trapped.
It was nothing more than a frightened animal.
Since then I raised it up.
I kept it for myself, kept it in my room,
kept it for its own good.
I named the animal, My Life.
I found food for it and fed it with my bare hands.
I let it into my bed, let it breathe in my sleep.
And the animal, in my love, my constant care,
grew up to be strong, and capable of many clever tricks.
One day, quite recently,
I was running my hand over the animal's side
and I came to understand
that it could very easily kill me.
I realized, further, that it would kill me.
This is why it exists, why I raised it.
Since then I have not known what to do.
I stopped feeding it,
only to find that its growth
has nothing to do with food.
I stopped cleaning it
and found that it cleans itself.
I stopped singing it to sleep
and found that it falls asleep faster without my song.
I don't know what to do.
I no longer make My Life do tricks.
I leave the animal alone
and, for now, it leaves me alone, too.
I have nothing to say, nothing to do.
Between My Life and me,
a silence is coming.
Together, we will not get through this.
~Joe Wenderoth

Weekly Reading

2011-05-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Famous
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence –
which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so.
The cat, sleeping on the fence, is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous – briefly – to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom – is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth – more famous than the dress shoe
–which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it,
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets.
To sticky children in grocery lines, famous is the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous or a buttonhole.
Not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye

weekly Reading

2011-04-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

One or Two Things
Don’t bother me.
I’ve just
been born.

The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes

for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower.

The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever,
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.

One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning — some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.

But to lift the hoof!
For that you need
an idea.

For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then

the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.
“Don’t love your life
too much,” it said,

and vanished
into the world.

~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-04-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

I Pray to the Birds

I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward.

I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin

and end each day–the invocations and benedictions of Earth.

I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear.

And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

~Terry Tempest Williams

Weekly Reading

2011-04-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

I will not die an unlived life

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I will choose to inhabit my days.
To allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible, to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live as that which came to me as a seed goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom goes on as fruit.
~Dawna Markova

Weekly Reading

2011-04-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

Snow Geese

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
What a task
to ask
of anything, or anyone,
yet it is ours,
and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.
One fall day I heard
above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound
I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was
a flock of snow geese, winging it
faster than the ones we usually see,
and, being the color of snow, catching the sun
so they were, in part at least, golden. I
held my breath
as we do
sometimes
to stop time
when something wonderful
has touched us
as with a match,
which is lit, and bright,
but does not hurt
in the common way,
but delightfully,
as if delight
were the most serious thing
you ever felt.
The geese
flew on,
I have never seen them again.
Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.
Maybe I won't.
It doesn't matter.
What matters
is that, when I saw them,
I saw them
as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

Weekly Reading

2011-03-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world

that has in it nothing fancy.

But it seems impossible.

Whatever the subject, the morning sun glimmers it.

The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.

The ants bore into the peony bud and

there is a dark pinprick well of sweetness.

As for the stones on the beach, forget it.

Each one could be set in gold.

So I tried with my eyes shut,

but of course the birds were singing.

And the aspen trees were shaking

the sweetest music out of their leaves.

And that was followed by, guess what,

a momentous and beautiful silence as comes to all of us,

in little earfuls, if we’re not too hurried to hear it.

As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs

even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,

and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,

so happy to be where they are, on the beach,

instead of being locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver

2011-03-14T04:28:00.000-07:00

The Healing Time

Finally
On my way to “yes”
I bump into all the places where I said “no” to my life

All the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages that send me down the wrong street again and again.
Where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them one by one close to my heart
and I say “holy, holy.”
~Persa Gertler

Weekly Reading

2011-02-28T05:45:00.000-08:00

What I Believe

I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.

I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man, but that his wife will remarry.
I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.

I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.

I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.

I believe we all drown eventually in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.

I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.

I believe that, when allthe clocks break,
time goes on without them.

And I believe that whatever pulls us under,
will do so gently.

so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
~Michael Blumenthal

Weekly Reading

2011-02-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

Love

Love calms.
Poised and centered,
nothing disturbs
the peace of my soul.
Love transcends
the anxieties and cares
of the world.
Love sees clearly.
Love views all things
with insight and understanding.
Love inspires my thoughts,
harmonizes my feelings,
and blesses me
to trust life.
Love radiates
out from me
to bring peace
to my world.

~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2011-02-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.
It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the whitefeet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-02-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.
It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.
But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?
Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.
When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking
to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,
as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-01-31T06:37:00.000-08:00

One

The mosquito is so small
it takes almost nothing to ruin it.
Each leaf, the same.
And the black ant, hurrying.
So many lives, so many fortunes!
Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.
Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour
before the slug creeps to the feast,
before the pine needles hustle down
under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

How many, how many, how many
make up a world!
And then I think of that old idea: the singular
and the eternal.
One cup, in which everything is swirled
back to the color of the sea and sky.
Imagine it!

A shining cup, surely!
In the moment in which there is no wind
over your shoulder,
you stare down into it,
and there you are,
your own darling face, your own eyes.
And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,
touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,
and you know what else!
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination.

~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2011-01-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

Weekly Reading

2011-01-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

Change III

Spirit is my strength and stability
through any change.
I can make
whatever adjustments
are necessary.
Realization keeps me poised.
I overthrow customary patterns.
Everything I now take for granted
was once unknown to me,
just as my best friends
were once unknown to me.
I need not fear change.
Something good is awaiting
from every change.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2011-01-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

At the Gate of the Year

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'
And he replied,
'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

~Minnie Louise Harkins 1875-1957

Christmas Eve Yoga

2010-12-31T02:24:00.000-08:00

raised $647 for People Gotta Eat!!!

Thanks to the generous nature of participating yogis!
This amount will be matched- totaling $1294 for local food pantries.

Weekly Reading

2010-12-27T07:01:00.000-08:00

We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,

Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.

Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.

Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves.

And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.

Peace, My Sister.

Peace, My Soul.

Weekly Reading

2010-12-19T10:24:00.000-08:00

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise,

trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things

and still be calm in your heart.”

Weekly Reading

2010-11-22T01:48:00.000-08:00

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-11-15T02:21:00.000-08:00

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-11-12T03:13:00.000-08:00

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I will choose to inhabit my days. To allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live as that which came to me as a seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom goes on as fruit.
~Dawna Markova

Weekly Reading

2010-11-12T03:07:00.000-08:00

Song For the Salmon
For too many days now I have not written of the sea,

nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents

we find between the islands
For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon

threading the dark streams of reflected stars,

nor have I dreamt of his longing

nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn
I have not given myself to the depth to which he goes,

to the cargoes of crystal water, cold with salt,

nor the enormous plains of ocean swaying beneath the moon.
I have not felt the lifted arms of the ocean

opening its white hands on the seashore,

nor the salted wind, whole and healthy

filling the chest with living air.
I have not heard those waves

fallen out of heaven onto earth,

nor the tumult of sound and the satisfaction

of a thousand miles of ocean

giving up its strength on the sand.
But now I have spoken of that great sea,

the ocean of longing shifts through me,

the blessed inner star of navigation

moves in the dark sky above

and I am ready like the young salmon

to leave his river, blessed with hunger

for a great journey on the drawing tide.
-David Whyte

Weekly Reading

2010-10-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Ocean Moving All Night

Stay with us. Don't sink to the bottom like a fish going to sleep.
Be with the ocean moving steadily all night,
not scattered like a rainstorm.
The spring we're looking for is somewhere in this murkiness
See the night-lights up there traveling together,
the candle awake in its gold dish.
Don't slide into the cracks of the ground like spilled mercury.
When the full moon comes out, look around.
~Rumi

Weekly Reading

2010-10-13T05:08:00.000-07:00

Our Greatest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to manifest the glory of

God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson

Weekly Reading

2010-10-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

“Darkness”
- The Necessity of Darkness
The next time you are feeling spiritually dark, remember that our hearts started beating in the darkness of the womb, seeds germinate in the darkness of the earth, and the earth rests in the darkness of winter so that spring can return. We all need fallow time. Darkness is a gift – it’s a great open space in which anything can happen. Surrender to it and the light will return.

Weekly Reading

2010-09-30T03:17:00.000-07:00

Choice II

I do not respond
in predictable ways,
like a rat in a maze.
I am not controlled

by people or events.
I make conscious choices

that put me
in control of my life.

I think, then act,
and watch my life transform.
Spirit turns

the darkness before me
into light.

When blind to solutions at hand,
when the way seems blocked,
I trust divine intelligence
to reveal answers

and show the way
to paths I have not known.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2010-09-30T03:16:00.001-07:00

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence –
which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so.
The cat, sleeping on the fence, is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous – briefly – to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom – is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth – more famous than the dress shoe
–which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it,
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets.
To sticky children in grocery lines, famous is the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous or a buttonhole.
Not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Weekly Reading

2010-08-30T06:54:00.001-07:00

“Happiness is not an individual matter. When you are able to bring relief, or bring back the smile to one person, not only that person profits, but you also profit. The deepest happiness you can have comes from that capacity to help relieve the suffering of others. So if we have the habit of being peace, then there is a natural tendency for us to go in the direction of service. Nothing compels us, except the joy of sharing peace, the joy of sharing freedom from afflictions, freedom from worries, freedom from craving, which are the true foundations for happiness."
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Weekly Reading

2010-08-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

It is I who must love myself. No one else can make me feel
whole. Only I can provide that love.Now I know that whole-
ness is always accessible to me and all beings everywhere.
This knowingallows me to live with a new peacefulness and
kindness to myself and others. In the simplest way, it has
changed my whole life.
-- After the Ecstacy, The Laundry

Weekly Reading

2010-08-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

“I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing ... Silence ... Waves. Nothing happens? Or Has everything Happened and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?”
~Juan Ramon Jimenez

Weekly Reading

2010-07-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

The Poet Goes to Indiana

I'll tell you a half-dozen things
that happened to me
in Indiana
when I went that far west to teach.
You tell me if it was worth it.

I lived in the country
with my dog—
part of the bargain of coming.
And there was a pondwith fish from, I think, China.
I felt them sometimes against my feet.
Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges,
to eat the grass.
I'm not lying.
And I saw coyotes,
two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly
unenclosed fields.
And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped
into the road just-oh, I mean just, in front of my car—
and we both made it home safe.
And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses,
or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house,
and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth,
he, too, would have hooves trimmed
for the Indiana winter,
and apples did it,
and a rope over the neck did it,
so I won something wonderful;
and there was, one morning,
an owl
flying, oh pale angel, into
the hay loft of a barn,
I see it still;and there was once, oh wonderful, a new horse in the pasture,
a tall, slim being-a neighbor was keeping her there—
and she put her face against my face,
put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets,
against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me,
to see who I was,
a long quiet minute-minutes—
then she stamped feet and whisked tail
and danced deliciously into the grass away, and came back.
She was saying, so plainly, that I was good, or good enough.
Such a fine time I had teaching in Indiana.

Weekly Reading

2010-07-12T01:18:00.000-07:00

Toad
I was walking by. He was sitting there.
It was full morning, so the heat was heavy on his sand-colored
head and his webbed feet.
I squatted beside him, at the edge
of the path. He didn't move.
I began to talk. I talked about summer, and about time.
The pleasures of eating, the terrors of the night.
About this cup we call a life. About happiness.
And how good it feels, the heat of the sun between the shoulder blades.
He looked neither up nor down, which didn't necessarily
mean he was either afraid or asleep.
I felt his energy, stored under his tongue perhaps,
and behind his bulging eyes.
I talked about how the world seems to me,
five feet tall, the blue sky all around my head.
I said, I wondered how it seemed
to him, down there, intimate with the dust.
He might have been Buddha— did not move, blink, or frown,
not a tear fell from those gold-rimmed eyes as the refined
anguish of language passed over him.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-07-12T01:11:00.000-07:00

Song of the Builder
On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-07-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

“Just a minute,” said a voice in the weeds.
So I stood still
in the day’s exquisite early morning light
and so I didn’t crush with my great feet
any small or unusual thing just happening to pass by
where I was passing by
on my way to the blueberry fields,
and maybe it was the toad
and maybe it was the June beetle
and maybe it was the pink and tender worm
who does his work without limbs or eyes
and does it well
or maybe it was the walking stick, still frail
and walking humbly by, looking for a tree,
or maybe, like Blake’s wondrous meeting, it was
the elves, carrying one of their own
on a rose-petal coffin away, away
into the deep grasses. After awhile
the quaintest voice said, “Thank you.” And then there was silence.
For the rest, I would keep you wondering.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-06-26T01:19:00.000-07:00

"I should be content to look at a mountain for what it is
and not as a comment on my life."
~David Ignatow

Weekly Reading

2010-06-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-06-04T03:16:00.000-07:00

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings...
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

The Dhammapada

Weekly Reading

2010-05-31T04:23:00.000-07:00

Eating Poetry

My poems resemble the bread of Egypt—one night
Passes over it, and you can't eat it any more.

So gobble them down now, while they're still fresh,
Before the dust of the world settles on them.

Where a poem belongs is here, in the warmth of the chest;
Out in the world it dies of cold.

You've seen a fish—put him on dry land,
He quivers for a few minutes, and then is still.

And even if you eat my poems while they're still fresh,
You still have to bring forward many images yourself.

Actually, friend, what you're eating is your own imagination.
These poems are not just some old proverbs.
~Rumi

Weekly Reading

2010-05-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

The Student
My poetry instruction book,
which I bought at an outdoor stall along the river,

contains many rules
about what to avoid and what to follow.
More than two people in a poem
is a crowd, is one.

Mention what clothes you are wearing
as you compose, is another.
Avoid the word vortex,
the word velvety, and the word cicada.

When at a loss for an ending,
have some brown hens standing in the rain.

Never admit that you revise.
And--always keep your poem in one season.

I try to be mindful,
but in these last days of summer
whenever I look up from my page
and see a burn-mark of yellow leaves,

I think of the icy winds
that will soon be knifing through my jacket.
---Billy Collins

Weekly Reading

2010-05-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

You, Reader
I wonder how you are going to feel
when you find out
that I wrote this instead of you.

that it was I who got up early
to sit in the kitchen
and mention with a pen

the rain-soaked windows,
the ivy wallpaper,
and the goldfish circling in its bowl

Go ahead and turn aside,
bite your lip and tear out the page,
but, listen -- it was just a matter of time

before one of us happened
to notice the unlit candles
and the clock humming on the wall.

Plus, nothing happened that morning--
a song on the radio,
a car whistling along the road outside--

and I was only thinking
about the shakers of salt and pepper
that were standing side by side on a place mat.

I wondered if they had become friends
after all these years
or if they were still strangers to one another

like you and I
who manage to be known and unknown
to each other at the same time --

me at this table with a bowl of pears,
you leaning in a doorway somewhere
near some blue hydrangeas, reading this.
~Billy Collins

Weekly Reading

2010-05-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

Genius
was what they called you in high school
if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall
and all your books went flying.

Or if you walked into an open locker door
you would be known as Einstein,
who imagined riding a streetcar into infinity.

Later, genius became someone
who could take a sliver of chalk and squire pi
a hundred places out beyond the decimal point,

or someone painting on his back on a scaffold,
or a man drawing a waterwheel in a margin,
or spinning out a little night music.

But earlier this week on a wooded path,
I thought the swans afloat on the reservoir
were the true geniuses,

the ones who had figured out how to fly,
how to be both beautiful and brutal,
and how to mate for life.

Twenty-four geniuses in all,
for I numbered them as Yeats had done,
deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface--

forty-eight if we count their reflections,
or an even fifty if you want to toss in me
and the dog running up ahead,

who were smart enough to be out
that morning--she sniffing the ground,
me with my head up in the bight morning air.

~Billy Collins

Weekly Reading

2010-04-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-04-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

I Pray to the Birds
I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry
the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because
I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin
and end each day -- the invocations and benedictions of Earth.
I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love
rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers,
they teach me how to listen.
~Terry Tempest Williams

Weekly Reading

2010-04-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

Famous
The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
~Naomi Shihab Nye

Weekly Reading

2010-04-07T03:54:00.000-07:00

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable,
like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think about it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?
~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-03-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Weekly Reading

2010-03-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon

Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it,
I grow sharp, I grow cold.

Where will the trilliums go, and the coltsfoot?
Where will the pond lilies go to continue living
their simple, penniless lives, lifting
their faces of gold?

Impossible to believe we need so much
as the world wants us to buy.
I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
than I could possibly use before I die.

Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,
with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.
No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.

And I suppose sometime I will.
Old and cold I will lie apart
from all this buying and selling, with only
the beautiful earth in my heart.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-03-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

The Ocean Moving Steadily All Night
Stay with us.
Don’t sink to the bottom
like a fish going to sleep.
Be with the ocean moving
steadily all night,
not scattered like a rainstorm.
The spring we’re looking for is somewhere in this murkiness.
See the night-lights up there
traveling together, the candle awake in its gold dish.
Don’t slide into the cracks of the ground like spilled mercury.
When the full moon comes out,
look around.
~Rumi

Weekly Reading

2010-03-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

Choice II
I do not respond
in predictable ways,
like a rat in a maze.

I am not controlled
by people or events.

I make conscious choices
that put me
in control of my life.

I think, then act,
and watch my life transform.

Spirit turns
the darkness before me
into light.

When blind to solutions at hand,
when the way seems blocked,
I trust divine intelligence
to reveal answers
and show the way
to paths I have not known.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2010-02-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

The Uses of Sorrow
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-02-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

Ease
I am unhurried and relaxed.
I exude an aura
of peace and goodwill.

I know in spirit,there is only
the eternal now.

I do not force issues.
I let my goals and aspirations
unfold one at a time.

I accomplish all
that needs to be done
easily and efficiently.

I am in the right place
at the right time.

My body responds
to my sense of order
and perfect timing.

I enjoy each moment of ease,
this day.

~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2010-02-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

Love Poem With Toast
Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.
~Miller Williams

Weekly Reading

2010-02-05T02:34:00.000-08:00

Mornings at Blackwater
For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2010-02-01T01:10:00.000-08:00

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
~Stephen Mitchell's translation of Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching

Weekly Reading

2010-01-18T03:27:00.000-08:00

Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

"I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear."

~Martin Luther King

Weekly Reading

2010-01-18T03:24:00.000-08:00

The Opening of Eyes

That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the visioin of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished, opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.
~David Whyte

Weekly Reading

2010-01-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

Head of the Year
The moon is dark tonight, a new
moon for a new year. It is
hollow and hungers to be full.
It is the black zero of beginning.

Now you must void yourself
of injuries, insults, incursions.
Go with empty hands to those
you have hurt and make amends.

It is not too late. It is early
and about to grow. Now
is the time to do what you
know you must and have feared
to begin. Your face is dark
too as you turn inward to face
yourself, the hidden twin of
all you must grow to be.

Forgive the dead year. Forgive
yourself. What will be wants
to push through your fingers.
The light you seek hides
in your belly. The light you
crave longs to stream from
your eyes. You are the moon
that will wax in new goodness.
~Marge Piercy

Weekly Reading

2010-01-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

I said to the man who
stood at the gate of the year,

"Give me a light
that I may tread safely
into the unknown."

And he replied,
"Go out into the darkness and
put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way."
~Minnie Louise Harkins

Weekly Reading

2009-09-26T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Old Poets of China
Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2009-09-13T17:23:00.000-07:00

One
The mosquito is so small
it takes almost nothing to ruin it.
Each leaf, the same.
And the black ant, hurrying.
So many lives, so many fortunes!
Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.
Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour
before the slug creeps to the feast,
before the pine needles hustle down
under the bundles harsh, beneficent rain.
How many, how many, how many
make up a world!
And I think of that old idea: the singular
and the eternal.
One cup, in which everything is swirled
back to the color of the sea and the sky.
Imagine it!
A shining cup, surely!
In the moment in which there is no wind
over your shoulder,
you stare down into it,
and there you are,
your own darling face, your own eyes.
And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,
touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,
and you know what else!
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination.
~Mary Oliver

Chant

2009-09-01T03:10:00.000-07:00

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Salutations to One of Great Splendor

Weekly Reading

2009-08-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

Untitled

Let us swing wide all the doors and windows of our hearts on their rusty hinges so we may learn how to open in love.

Let us see the light in one another and honor it, so we may lift one another on our shoulders and carry each other along.

Let holiness move in us so we may pay attention to its small voice and give ourselves fully with both hands.
~Dawna Markova

Weekly Reading

2009-08-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

Miracles In The Minutia
Tiny, little specks of
white flecks…
flowers poking
through the crevice
of the public transportation train station.

I was filled with judgment
until that moment…
the things things that were not going right,
the person who had not set me up
for success…
the list of my complaints long.
Until that moment.

The flowers were not complaining
that they had to grow
in a crack,
in a crevice
on the edge of concrete
at a station
instead of in a beautiful field
with room to breathe and grow.

They were just being flowers.
Being beautiful
whether anyone cared
or noticed
at all.

I was one big complaint…
until that moment…
when I stooped down
and touched their magnificence
and was humbled to my core.
~Julia Butterfly Hill

Weekly Reading

2009-08-12T05:57:00.000-07:00

My Religion
"When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That is my religion."
~Abraham Lincoln.

Weekly Reading

2009-08-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

"Three things in human life are important:
The first is to be kind;
the second is to be kind;
and the third is to be kind."
~Henry James

Weekly Reading

2009-07-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

How would you life then?

What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks
flew in circles around your head?

What if the mockingbird came into the house with you
and became your advisor?

What if the bees filled your walls with honey
and all you needed to do was ask them
and they would fill the bowl?

What if the brook slide downhill just past your bedroom windows
so you could listen to its slow prayers as you fell asleep?

What if the stars began to shout their names,
or to run this way and that way above the clouds?

What if you painted a picture of a tree,
and the leaves began to rustle,
and a bird cheerfully sang from its painted branches?

What if you suddenly saw that the silver of water was brighter than the silver of money?

What if you finally saw that sunflowers,
turning toward the sun all day and every day – who knows how,
but they do it – were more precious,
more meaningful than gold?
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2009-07-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

Choice II
I do not respond
in predictable ways,
like a rat in a maze.

I am not controlled
by people or events.

I make conscious choices
that put me
in control of my life.

I think, then act,
and watch my life transform.

Spirit turns
the darkness before me
into light.

When blind to solutions at hand,
when the way seems blocked,
I trust divine intelligence
to reveal answers
and show the way
to paths I have not known.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2009-07-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

8. The Garden
What I want to know, please, is
what is possible, and what is not.
If it is not, then I am for it.
My heat is out of its flesh-phase.
I am done with all of it, the habits, the patience.
Whoever I was, it is growing hazy and forgettable.

Whoever I am it is for mere appearance's sake.
It is for coin, and foolishness,
and I am thinking of something better.
All morning it has been raining.
In the language of the garden, this is happiness.
The tissues perk and shine.
Truely this is the poem worth keeping.
A mossy house anyone with any sense would enter
as soon as the soul begins
to desire the impossible.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

2009-07-07T12:24:00.000-07:00

Grammar
Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she's a conjugated verb.
She's been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.
~Tony Hoagland

Weekly Reading

2009-07-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

What I Believe
I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.

I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.

I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.

I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.

I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.

I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.

I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.

I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.

And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently.

so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
~Michael Blumenthal

Weekly Reading

2009-06-22T07:42:00.001-07:00

Only as a spiritual warrior can one withstand the path of
knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything.
His life is an endless challenge and challenges cannot
possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior
is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an
ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
- Don Juan

Weekly Reading

2009-06-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Indian Poet/Saint

Weekly Reading

2009-06-15T12:12:00.000-07:00

Care

Spirit takes care of
all that concerns me.
All situations in my life
resolve themselves.
Spirit knows the way
Spirit knows the solution.
I give up all worry to spirit's keeping.
I have the assurance
of answered prayer.
Spirit does not fail me
or forsake me.
I am relaxed
and anxiety free.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

2009-06-15T11:22:00.002-07:00

If the philosopher is right
If the philosopher is right,
that all we are
and all the earth around us
is only a dream,

even if a bright, long dream-
that even is nothing
but what sits in the mind,

that the trees, that the red bird
are all in the mind,
and the river, and the sea in storm
are all in the mind,

that nothing exists fierce or soft or apt to be
truly shaken-
nothing tense, wild sleepy-nothing
likes Yeats' girl with the yellow hair-
then you too are a dream

which last night and the night before that
and the years before that
you were not.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading-Chant

2009-06-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Kaayena Vacha Manasendriyar Va
Buddhyatmanava Prakriteh swabhaavat
Karomi Yadyat sakalam Parasmai
Narayanayeti Samarpayami

Whatever actions I may perform
Impelled by the forces of nature
By body, word, mind, senses, intellect, soul,
I offer to the feet of Narayana (direction of a human)-the one that helps a human to his/her goal, i.e. towards moksha or liberation.

Weekly Reading

2009-05-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have learnt silence from the talkative,
toleration from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind; yet strange,
I am ungrateful to these teachers.
~Kahlil Gibran

Weekly Reading

2009-05-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

There once lived a man of great knowledge. His reputation as a scholar spread throughout the land and still he longed for recognition. And so it came to pass that this scholar sought out a Zen Master in a nearby monastery asking to be shown the true nature of the universe. But part of him wanted and expected the Zen Master to acknowledge his wisdom. The scholar was granted an interview and seated at a low wooden table. The Zen Master entered the room in silence, placed a tea cup before the scholar and proceeded to fill it with tea. The cup filled up and began spilling over the table, and still the Zen Master continued pouring. The scholar cried out in alarm "My cup is overflowing!" The Zen Master answered "Precisely!" and so ended the interview.

The story of the Tea Cup to demonstrates that knowledge without humility is in fact a handicap to learning. Complete beginners start with an open mind and listen to every word because it is all new to them. They know they are ignorant and so they do not fear to ask questions. The experienced student has heard most of it before, and not listening, misses the little that he did not already know, and so the beginner passes him by. A full cup can receive no tea.

Therefore, when breathing empty your lungs, when learning empty your mind; when loving empty your heart; and when worshiping empty your soul.
~Unknown

Weekly Reading

2009-04-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

The Five Remembrances

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

~Buddha (offered by Thich Nhat Hanh)

Weekly Reading

2009-04-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Katie's Poem
I bristle and I bluster
when the woman ten years younger
Says
“I am getting old”

I hear a ticking clock
in yoga
And then bird sounds and a chime
And I want songs
And not ticking
To accompany my dance

A ray of sun
A messy house
Opportunities
And choices
And wisdom, which I may choose
To listen to
Or not.

How will I hold these precious things?
How will I laugh through my frustration?
See how I chafe when someone treats me as ignorant
How often have I done the same to another?
Do I value the divine spark within
Every one?

Can I model grace?
Or is there something else
Wordless
That is mine to model?
Not seeking to become
But knowing
Like Ken said
I amPerfect.
~Kathryn Mansfield

Weekly Reading

2009-04-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~David Wagoner

Weekly Reading

2009-04-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

PEACE.
It does not mean to be in a place
where there is no noise, no trouble
or hard work. It means to be in
the midst of all those things and still
be calm in your heart
(unknown)